Grace Changes Everything

Grace changes the terms of everything. We start with Jeremiah’s promise of a New Covenant and the ancient practice of covenant “cutting,” then follow the thread to the cross where Jesus becomes the sacrifice that secures the covenant on our behalf. From there, we walk with Paul in Acts 20 as he heads toward affliction to “testify to the gospel of the grace of God,” revealing why the law exposes our need but cannot supply the power to meet it.

We unpack the crucial shift from law to grace: the law demanded perfection and offered no help; grace pardons, empowers, and gives us a “new and living way.” Along the way, we dig into core claims that stretch the mind and calm the heart—salvation by grace through faith, not works; reconciliation as a gift, not wages; and growth in holiness fueled by “grace upon grace,” not white-knuckled effort. If grace feels too good to be true, we consider why that reaction is common and how trust in the finished work of Christ reorients our fears, habits, and hopes.

You’ll hear how covenant, sacrifice, and promise come together in Jesus, why Paul’s courage flows from grace, and how everyday discipleship shifts from earning to receiving. The result is practical and pastoral: a faith rooted in the gift of God that produces joy, perseverance, and worship. If you’re ready to trade exhaustion for assurance and striving for Spirit-led strength, press play, share this with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review to help others find the good news of grace.

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Transcript

Promise Of The New Covenant

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Is in God's plan that He has given to us. As Gentiles, we share in the New Covenant. In the Old Testament in Jeremiah, we have a promise to Israel in particular at this time, but it came also to the Gentiles through the grace of God. In Jeremiah. I will, God is speaking through Jeremiah. I will promise, God says, I will. Covenant comes from a word in Hebrew means cutting. When the covenant is made at this time in history, it would take an animal. And the covenant was made by cutting the animal into pieces. According to the old covenant, it was done through the sacrifice of an animal. If I fail to keep the covenant that I make, let what happened to this animal happen to me. And they pass a true covenant. You and me by faith. God allowed allowed his son Jesus to become our sacrifice by dying on the cross on behalf of our sins. Death of Christ is all important to our faith. He has reconciliation. We brought back into fellowship with God through Jesus. Jesus gave himself for our sins. God loved us so much that he gave his only begotten Son, Jesus. Jesus willingly gave himself on the cross, the death of the cross on behalf of our sins. The Bible teaches us that the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. So the Father gave his son on our behalf. The Bible teaches us that the wages of sin is death. We praise his name. The new covenant. He says, Jeremiah, not according to the covenant that I made with Israel, and I brought them out of Egypt, the promised land. We're speaking of the grace of God. In Acts 20 and verse 24, listen to the Apostle Paul. Let us read a few versions before we get there. Paul says in verse 22, and now, behold, I go bound in spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there, save that the Holy Ghost witnesses in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. None of these things, he says, Paul says, moved me, neither can I my life dear to myself so that I may finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. That was Paul's ministry that he received from Christ to testify. Paul says to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. The old covenant of the law was the covenant that God made with Israel in the day that he took them by hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. The promise through Jeremiah, listen carefully, was that the Lord would make a different type of covenant someday, not according to that covenant. This new covenant would be a covenant of grace provided by the Lord Jesus Christ. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. The law of God was an impossible way to relate to the Lord. It required perfection, but it offered no perfecting assistance. It was able, to convince people of their need for the grace of Christ found in the new covenant. The law became our tutor to bring us to Christ according to Galatians 3 and verse 24. Now we live and proclaim the new covenant of grace, the new and living way. Did you hear that? It is the new and living way which He consecrated for us, according to Hebrews 10 and verse 20. This was the mission and message of which the apostles spoke. He's an apostle to us, Gentiles. He spoke the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. As Paul's ministry, he was called to do that. The gospel is all about the grace of God, not about law. The word of the truth of the gospel which has come to you. The grace of God. Glad tidings. Grace of God. Glad tidings. Or good news. Good news of the grace of God provided through Jesus Christ is the preeminent message in all of creation. In fact, the gospel of the grace of grace is such good news that some unbelievers initially reject it as too good to be true. Indeed, it is an astonishing reality to consider that forgiveness, justification, and new birth are all available by grace through faith, the gift of God, not of works, as the Bible teaches us in Ephesians two verses eight through nine. Perhaps we should not be surprised that some believers react in the same manner when they begin to consider the message of the grace for growth and sanctification. To hear that the entire Christian life is to be grace upon grace given to us in John 1 and verse 16 may at first seem too good to be true. At times we may ask or have others ask us, isn't there any human responsibility in God's plan for salvation? The saved and unsaved elect must always be willing to respond to the author of God's grace in Christ. We must all relate properly to the Lord Jesus for every work of grace because it is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Second Corinthians eight nine. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, Lord God of the new covenant, we pray to him, we give him the glory. We testify what he has done and what he is doing. How glorious is the good news of the grace that God has given each of us. I praise the Lord. We praise him his patience and act as though transforming grace is too good to be true. I want to seek after the Lord Jesus and trust in him this day, with all of my heart, and we should all say amen. Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you forthless before his presence with exceeding joy. And only wise God our Savior. The glory and majesty, dominion, and power. Now and forever, let us all say Amen.